50 Cent: Blood on the Sand

Spiffy:

Iffy:

Not new in any way; simplistic and brutal gameplay; holds little appeal for non-fans.

What happens when 50 Cent gets stiffed on a gig? If you said "go on a murderous rampage through a developing nation" you'd be right. Really, what else could be the outcome of such a situation? In 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand, you are mostly concerned with the murderous rampage portion of the equation, but you can at least console yourself that the thousands of victims are actually bloodthirsty thugs in their own right, so maybe gunning them all down in cold blood is a public service. Blood on the Sand is brutal, bloody and bombastic... and also looks an awful lot like Sega's recent gunplay-obsessed shooter The Club.

Fiddy With a Flourish

Blood on the Sand is an over-the-shoulder action shooter in which Fiddy has been stiffed on a concert and subsequently exacts revenge on nearby innocents drug thugs. It looks almost exactly like The Club in terms of visual fidelity, and it plays a lot like The Club as well (minus the little skull targets and a story that makes even a modicum of sense). Your only concern is just how much damage you want to do to the surrounding environment as you fill its streets with crimson plasma and viscera.

To that end, you get access to an absurd arsenal of previously military-only weaponry (now available to rap artists thanks to shady arms dealers that you meet along your bloody travels). Heavy machine guns, submachine guns, 50 cal turrets... you name it, Fiddy can wield it. Want to tool around in a Humvee with a mounted death hose? No problem.

Outside of simple blasting, Blood on the Sand's most compelling combat feature seems to be the counter-kill. This move is a melee counterattack that you can trigger when in close quarters that devastates whatever chump was unfortunate enough to step to Fiddy. Once you've activated the maneuver, you'll get a protracted and gruesome interactive cut-scene (a la God of War) in which Fiddy stabs the poor sap some fifteen times in various body locations. Reminiscent of Turok's stealth kills but without all the pesky stealth gameplay, the counter-kills were easily the coolest thing in Blood on the Sand.

Bonuses for kill combos (killing hella people in a row), cover mechanics, and AI with awareness of its surroundings (meaning that enemies will attempt to take cover and flank you) are all present even in the early pre-alpha version. Collecting money from crates serves as your method of character development and gathered Benjamins can be converted into new and exciting weapons by calling Fiddy's personal arms dealer via cell phone.

Fully aware of the issues with the previous 50 Cent game, Sierra has endeavored to improve Blood on the Sand in that it's not a sequel to Bulletproof in any way. While this bare-bones approach to rabid firefights seems promising, it's difficult to shake the lingering skepticism left by Bulletproof. Shipping to retailers this fall, Blood on the Sand seems more like a vehicle for cashing in on the rap star's fan base than a truly innovative game... that said, it could still be a solid shooter despite the distinct lack of anything new.